In cute, cartoon-like terms, they can see the mouse, but they can’t see the corn.The mouse is their own little world; the corn is an entity that they work with. They have no visibility into that other entity. But I do. Since I work with both entities as a consumer of their services, I can see both. I can see the mouse and the corn, and I know that mice love corn and there’s going to be a problem between those two. I have visibility that places the corn and the mouse in context. The service providers (yes, actually both) do not have any visibility into each other.

I’m getting tired of dealing with organizations that lack process visibility. It’s just as annoying as having to remind a waitress that she left half your dinner off the bill. I’m so anally honest that I don’t let it slide. I always bring the shortage up to the wait-staff even when they look at me like I’m an idiot for not taking the freebie. You feel like you work for the other company. You feel like you’re an auditor, working for free, guiding this other entity to a higher level of performance. No one likes to work for free for another company. I sure don’t. But those poor folks just can’t see the whole picture. I’m becoming a fan of corporate Darwinism – the view that some companies should not survive. Yet, each time I – as a consumer, not as a Gartner analyst – have to guide a company to do the right thing (Ummm, sir… you left the steak dinner off the bill), I feel like I’m unfairly propping up a company that shouldn’t be allowed to survive. It’s the same with process visibility. How much time have I burned because I can see A+B = C and the service provider (A or B) can’t even see that C exists?

Mice and corn. When the two mix, you get a mess. Can you see the corn? Or are you too busy running the maze.

P.S. – I originally had this as mouse and cheese, but that was way too close to a little book that was popular a few years ago, and I wasn’t interested in that accidental comparison.

P.P.S – Graphics are licensed Microsoft Clip Art.

1. “The Man” or “The Woman.” Those management types.
2. “The Workers.” Those wage slaves
3. “The Process People.” Those gurus who claim to make life better.

What if each actor had a big wall clock? What if each clocks was labeled with a “tag” (e.g., “The Man”) and hung on the wall for everyone to see? What if all the clocks were side by side?

Yawn… Three clocks, all showing the same time. Boring.

Well, these aren’t regular clocks. These are clocks that mimic the famous Doomsday Clock, counting down the minutes to nuclear annihilation (midnight). Only these clocks count down the “minutes before process collapse.”

Minutes before process collapse – a snarky McCoy-ism that one uses to describe how close to a total failure your particular business process is at any given time. It’s subjective. It’s relative. It’s not good to be close to midnight.

Now, what if each of the actors could set his or her clock, based on the collective perception of his or her cadre (e.g., management, worker, process people)? What time would each clock show? Would management set their clock a safe 56 minutes from midnight? Would “The workers” set theirs at 11:57? Would “The Process People” take their clock down and replace it with a poster of BPMN 2.0 symbols and an IOU for “One new process”?

What kind of message would the three clocks give off? Harmonious understanding of process problems? Blind optimism? Raging pessimism? Complete disregard for reality?

If you take me up on this – and you should – send me (david dot mccoy at gartner dot com) a picture of the three clocks and your written permission to post it. Don’t include any identifying information (company, stock symbol, your face, etc.) If your process is teetering on the brink of collapse, I don’t think your management will want that shared. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at where their clock is set. You might have to move a BPMN 2.0 poster (or a “Workers Unite” poster) to see it.

What phrase/word/symbology would you say best characterizes “what it is that we claim to do,” assuming you can’t use “BPM” in your lexicon? Would your new acronym/label use some of these elements?

• Innovation?
• Bean counting?
• Reimaging?
• Fiddling?
• Business evolution?
• &^**(*(?

Thoughts welcomed.

This is funny, isn’t it? Effectively, the answer was, “You’re waiting because we’re doing something to make sure you won’t have to wait.”

This is a story of a few well-known BPM traps:

1. Partial functional excellence will lead to end-to-end failure – The food preparers were doing the right thing. They were cooking delicious food and they didn’t want to run out. But, the entire process – aka “eating lunch” – was a failure from the end-to-end perspective. In reality, this wasn’t even functional excellence. It was partial-functional excellence. By leaving the line unstaffed, they optimized themselves into functional dysfunction on that silo. Anytime you have a functional inefficiency in the pipeline, you pretty much kiss end-to-end efficiencies goodbye. But, even if all the functional silos are working, you can still die on the end-to-end.
2. Process metrics misalignment – Just what metrics were they using for success? One was clearly, “Don’t run out of food.” That’s good. But, another was, “Don’t make people wait.” They failed there. Metrics interact. If you don’t acknowledge that, you’re toast.
3. Poor visibility – Did the line worker see the obvious silliness of her comment, “We’re making you wait because we’re doing something so you don’t wait” ? Probably not. She was too busy keeping up with the line’s requests. Just who had visibility here? Did management? Where was management?

This reality check is not just for cafeteria lines; it applies to all processes. If you optimize on functional silos (prep food, serve food, pay for food, etc), then you’re probably in trouble. If you don’t know your metrics, you’re in trouble. If you don’t have process visibility, you’re running blind.

Process excellence – why is it so elusive?

1962 – WE KNOW YOU! – “Hi, Tom! How’s Mary? And the kids? Great! Howsabout we check the oil again, Stevie… I want you to make sure Tom’s new Chevy is in tip-top condition. Yeah, that’s right. Wipe the stick with a clean rag each time. Yeah, that’s right. So, Tom… Howsabout you and me and the wives get together on Saturday for some bridge? Great! It’s our turn to bring the colas and chips. Okay, Stevie. Close ‘er up and get Tom one of those new keychains we just got in. He’s a loyal customer you know!”

1979 – WE KNOW YOU WON’T MIND – “No, Mac. You gotta lift the lever before it’ll start pumpin’ out the gas. Here’s whatcha do. You take the cap off – you ain’t got one of them locking caps do you? Ok, you take the cap off, you pick up the hose, insert the nozzle, lift this red handle, and then you start pumpin’. I used to do this all the time, but now I have to watch all these pumps. We hadda let Steve go, you know.. If you want, you can put some air in your tires. Here’s my tire gauge. You know… it’s kinda like you’re doin’ Steve’s job – I mean his old job. Kinda funny, ain’t it?”

1999 – WE KNOW NOTHING – “Speak louder into the microphone please. What? Okay, you want $20 of regular on pump 12. You have to come pay first. No, the credit card reader is broken. You have to come in to the store. Yeah, we’ve got air for 25 cents, but the machine is busted. Tire gauge? No, I don’t have one you can borrow, but I can sell you one. And we’ve got a special on drinks today. You can get a liter size cola for half off with a fill-up. If you want that tire gauge, you can find it next to the oil and the disinfectant. No. That’s busted too. Someone flooded it last night. No one cleans up around this place. No, man. Not me. You can go next door and use theirs.”

2010 – WHO THE HECK ARE YOU? – “Our premises are monitored 24×7 by Cybro-Centurian video monitors. Please enter the zip code for the card you are using. If you have a complaint, you can call 1-888-//////////. Follow us on Twitter! You might win “gas for life.” I’m sorry. No attendant is on duty.”

And you wonder why we need BPM now more than ever….

1. BPM certification
2. Business Process Management Certification
3. bpm certifications (plural)
4. best bpm certification

The evidence is anecdotal because you really can’t conclude anything universal about this. If people are searching for “BPM cufflinks” and that phrase does not appear on my blog (until just now, that is), the search data would be zero. The search data only relates to what I’ve written about herein. However, I write a lot of “stuff” about BPM. So while “BPM cufflinks” only appears twice (so far), there are many BPM-related terms and concepts here that a search engine would love to eat.

So, I take this as indication of interest in BPM certification. But based on the questions that folks ask, interest is speculative, conditional, and tenuous. So, there’s work to be done here to convert interest to action, and to match supply and demand.

Your thoughts are encouraged.

If you’ve blended context-aware computing and BPM, then you’ll probably know what I’m talking about. The research note is due out on the 20th.

To me, this is like answering the question, “Is she the best salesperson in Washington state,” by hemming and hawing, and then pointing out that she really lives in Vancouver, and therefore, she’s not even eligible. You don’t really answer the REAL question, now do you? But, it does shut everyone up for a while. I’m pretty sure that’s what’s just happened here, but – again – I’m not a lawyer.

Your thoughts on Bilski v. Kappos welcomed

75.5 Miles Per Gallon!

I’m a HERO!

Well, no… I was going down a mountain, using just enough gas to keep the engine turning. I was “riding the brake.” Going up the mountain – the other side of the story – took a LOT of gas. I didn’t show you the MPG on that one did I? Nope.

Now, if you’re measuring business process performance, and you only look at a portion of the process, you’re just fooling yourself. Just as 75.5 MPG is an unsustainable pace, subsidized by an “up the mountain” penalty, partial process metrics also mislead.

I’ve said it before: If you don’t view the entire end-to-end process as a whole, you’re going to get a misleading picture of your total performance. If someone comes bragging about how well “their part of the process” is performing, have them recast their performance in light of the full end-to-end performance. You might find a 75.5 MPG myth in your own performance numbers.